Nasa's probe to touch the sun took it to the air on August 13 and is operating as planned.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (Nasa) mission to touch the Sun saw a day's delay due to some technical glitch but now, Parker Solar Probe is operating as planned.

It is Nasa's historic mission to touch the Sun and unravel mysteries of our star. It was launched aboard United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket on August 13 and is operating according to plan, mission controllers have said.

As of 12 pm EDT on August 16, the Parker Solar Probe was 4.6 million km from Earth, travelling at 62,764 km per hour, and heading toward its first Venus flyby scheduled for October 3, 2018, Geoff Brown of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, or APL, in Maryland, wrote in a Nasa blog post on Friday.

The spacecraft will use Venus to slightly slow itself and adjust its trajectory for an optimal path towards the first perihelion of the Sun on November 5 this year.

Parker Solar Probe is operating as designed, and we are progressing through our commissioning activities.

- Project Manager Andy Driesman of APL said

PARKER SOLAR PROBE

The probe is first-ever mission into the Sun's atmosphere which is called corona. Here the probe will directly explore the solar processes that will provide us with the key to unlock mysteries.

This will enable us to understand and forecast space weather events that can impact life on Earth.

The FIELDS investigation, which consists of the most elements, went first. It was powered up on August 13 for two activities, Brown said.

First was the opening of the clamps which held four of the five FIELDS antennas stowed during takeoff.

These antennas will be deployed roughly 30 days after launch, and they will stick out from the corners of the spacecraft's heat shield called the Thermal Protection System and be exposed to the harsh solar environment.

Second, the spacecraft's magnetometer boom was fully deployed. This boom contains three magnetometers and a fifth, smaller electric field antenna, all part of the FIELDS suite.

Further instrument check-outs and deployments are scheduled in the coming days for the spacecraft, Brown said.

(With inputs from IANS)

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